Nina and I have been enthusiastically taking advantage of Winter Restaurant Week 2004. Despite its name, Restaurant Week actually spans two weeks, weekdays only. Select restaurants offer a fixed price menu for lunch at $20.04 and dinner at $30.04. Some of these restaurants would normally cost $100 and up per person, so Restaurant Week’s a pretty good deal.

We’ve eaten at:

1. Citarella
   Roasted Winter Squash Soup with Wild Mushrooms and Pumpkin Seeds, Skate (Sting Ray) with Sauted Artichokes and Shitake Mushrooms, Chocolate Brioche Pudding with Maple Ice Cream and Chocolate Sauce

2. Pampano
   Shrimp and Mackerel Ceviche (raw chopped shrimp and mackerel, partially cooked in lime juice and chillies), some really good seafood main dish that I don’t remember exactly, and ice cream
3. Cafe Boulud
   Mushroom Soup, Seared Scallops, and Molten Chocolate Tart.
4. rm
   Seared Scallops, Halibut with Porcini Mushroom Nage, and a Molten Chocolate Tart with home-made Rum and Raisin Ice-Cream.

The casual observer will notice a great deal of scallops, skate, and chocolate. Those are very yummy things.

Work’s been crazy busy, which is really nothing new. What was new was that for the first two weeks I was back, I found it really hard to get back in the groove of things. Felt really distracted from thinking about Singapore and stuff like that. But now things are back to normal. I’m working crazy hours again. We’re supposed to find out about possible promotions some time in the next two weeks, which is a little scary. I’d really like to get promoted. The recognition of hard work would be nice, but honestly, the money would be great. A girl’s gotta pay her college loans.

The New Yorker has a beautiful story this month: The Last Words on Earth. It’s beautifully written. Read it.